


The Mistake of Blacktooth Hark

by orphan_account



Category: Pirates! - Rees
Genre: Character of Color, Female Character of Color, Female Characters, Ficlet, Gen, Motherhood, POV Male Character, POV Original Character, POV Third Person, Past Tense, Wordcount: 100-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-05
Updated: 2007-05-05
Packaged: 2017-10-09 07:49:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written by request and I am ashamed to say I forget whose. She wanted Minerva winning a short fight.</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Mistake of Blacktooth Hark

**Author's Note:**

> Written by request and I am ashamed to say I forget whose. She wanted Minerva winning a short fight.

Blacktooth Hark was an observant man, or so he'd always thought himself. He caught news fast enough and considered himself an expert on gossip in twelve cities. He could make a friend of any man and less than a man out of an enemy in ten minutes. So he knew all about this "Jupiter". She might look like a man, but if there was one thing Blacktooth knew about women (in fact, there wasn't much), it was that there was no suppressing certain feminine instincts.

And so it was obvious which of the many useful plots in a brigand's book of tricks he should employ now, on hearing Ms Sharpe was in town along with her mates, with a beautiful box of treasures stowed away somewhere in the city, under floorboards or behind a cupboard, waiting for their ship to come to port.

He watched the men – and the woman – as they went about the city, visiting a bank here in the person of honourable merchants, and an inn there as men-about-town. For the first day Blacktooth was unable to find where they lived, but he wouldn't have been the man he thought he was if he hadn't been able to find it out eventually. There they were, the very objects of his hunt, in front of one of the cleaner inns, crouched on the ground drawing squares on the street with chalk: two pretty brown children of indeterminable gender and the ages three and five, with their dandyish guardian – Mr Sharpe, maybe? – asleep on a bench nearby, a book still open in his hand.

Hark put on his friendliest smile (his nickname was ironic – he was blessed with two rows of well-formed, pearly white teeth) and, as this was his specialty, expected it to work wonders, even if he wasn't that used to talking to children. "Hello there, mites," he addressed them. "What's that you got there? What are you drawing?"

The children looked up at him with big brown eyes, so he crouched next to them. "You want to learn a nice game?"

He heard the door of the inn open and looked up to see Ms. Sharpe herself in full male costume with a long coat and fine stockings. "Do you want something?" she demanded, her voice the same as her name, sharp and authoritative.

Now was the time for action. Blacktooth Hark grabbed the smallest child and stood up, quickly pulling a knife out of his sleeve. "Now, Ms Sharpe, you'll not mind showing me where the—"

He never had the chance to finish that sentence. Minerva had moved like lightning, and the knife hadn't got within three inches of the child's neck before it fell to the ground, followed soon by Blacktooth Hark, who rolled down like a loose sack of potatoes. There was barely any blood; an ounce of it trickled down on the cobbles, mixed with the fluids of the brain. The sword had sliced clean through.

Little Jupe wasn't crying. His feet hit the ground as Hark fell, and he ran right behind his mother. Little Phyllis was already there, grasping at her mother's coat. Vincent had awoken with a start. "What—" he managed to utter before he noticed Hark, and the sword in Minerva's hand. Her eyes were burning.

People were beginning to gather around. "I saw it all," said the quivery voice of a little black-clad woman from across the street. "I saw he tried to threaten the little ones," she explained later to the gendarme.

Even so, the pirates decided it was best not to stick around. They left a message to the portmaster to be given to the Swift Success and rode to the next city that night.

The story of Blacktooth Hark's mistake spread, and upon hearing it, other men much like him now considered themselves slightly better acquianted with the workings of feminine instinct.


End file.
